{"id":22101,"date":"2012-10-15T12:00:45","date_gmt":"2012-10-15T11:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=22101"},"modified":"2023-05-22T08:59:28","modified_gmt":"2023-05-22T07:59:28","slug":"22101","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2012\/10\/22101\/","title":{"rendered":"Lexicon of War"},"content":{"rendered":"

October 11, 2012<\/em> – A few days ago, overwhelmed by the endless violence and wars in our world, I wrote a brief and simple email to a number of listservs where I listed a number of different adjectives preceding the word \u201cwar.\u201d\u00a0 I did this somewhat impulsively as a catharsis for my own angst and anger at the fact that \u201cwars\u201d and violence had become commonplace that they were part of our daily vernacular and popular culture. We had come to the place that virtually any conflict or disagreement could be labeled a \u201cwar.\u201d<\/p>\n

I stated that I was concerned the extensive number and widespread use of adjectives preceding the word \u201cwar\u201d would somehow make us immune to its meaning \u2013 its horrible and tragic meaning.\u00a0 As a result, we would find ourselves accustomed to its use and habituated to its subtle and apparent significance. I felt that under these circumstances, national policies and decisions regarding war could be pursued without a full recognition of consequences. It is easy to start a war, and difficult to end it. \u00a0It can become a reflexive response amidst any contention, precisely at the time when other solutions should be pursued.<\/p>\n

I added with some degree of cynicism that there were even \u201cfutile wars.\u201d\u00a0 And I noted that this term seems to have escaped the vocabulary of our politicians. I published an article a few years ago on the United States as a \u201cculture of war, that was based on the notion that a cultural ethos can develop that socializes war as a way of life. I have attached a figure from this article that captures the complexity of this process as we go back and forth among ethos, macrosocial institutions, microsocial institutions, and individual levels of organization.<\/p>\n

Well, in the brief email where I listed the different kinds of war, I added a request to readers to make any additions they felt were appropriate.\u00a0 I expected only a few.\u00a0 But, in fact, the email brought many replies that both suggested additions and that acknowledged the implications of the emerging \u201clexicon of wars.\u201d\u00a0 Thus I share with you now, an updated and more comprehensive lexicon of wars.<\/p>\n

I must admit, as I gathered the terms, I found myself \u201cshocked\u201d by the widespread use of the word \u201cwar.\u201d\u00a0 Was it possible that within the context of our global era and its increased inter-dependencies we had come to find the tensions of competition for comfort, resources, and survival itself to push us toward \u201cwars\u201d at all levels. A \u201cversus\u201d mentality had arisen that was pitting different people, organizations, nations, and products against one another in a win-lose arena. The tragedy of this situation is that there are never winners and losers in any war, only casualties and legacies of anger and revenge.<\/p>\n

Table 1:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Lexicon of Wars<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

biological wars,<\/p>\n

border wars<\/strong><\/p>\n

cab wars<\/strong><\/p>\n

cancer wars<\/strong><\/p>\n

civil wars,<\/p>\n

cold wars<\/p>\n

colonial wars<\/strong><\/p>\n

communication wars <\/strong><\/p>\n

corporate wars,<\/p>\n

culture wars,<\/p>\n

cyber wars,<\/p>\n

diet wars<\/strong><\/p>\n

drug wars<\/strong><\/p>\n

ethnic wars<\/p>\n

family wars<\/strong><\/p>\n

financial wars,<\/p>\n

food wars<\/strong><\/p>\n

gang wars<\/p>\n

gas wars<\/strong><\/p>\n

gasoline wars,<\/p>\n

girl wars<\/strong><\/p>\n

global wars<\/strong><\/p>\n

happy wars<\/strong><\/p>\n

holy wars<\/strong><\/p>\n

hot wars<\/p>\n

ideological wars<\/p>\n

just wars (jus ad bellum<\/em>)<\/strong><\/p>\n

language wars<\/p>\n

low-intensity wars<\/p>\n

media wars\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n

neighbor wars<\/p>\n

nuclear wars<\/p>\n

oil wars<\/strong><\/p>\n

parking wars<\/strong><\/p>\n

pizza wars<\/strong><\/p>\n

price wars<\/p>\n

product wars,<\/p>\n

race wars<\/strong><\/p>\n

regional wars,<\/p>\n

religious wars<\/strong><\/p>\n

restaurant wars<\/strong><\/p>\n

secret wars<\/p>\n

shadow wars,<\/p>\n

star wars<\/strong><\/p>\n

tribal wars<\/strong><\/p>\n

war to end war<\/p>\n

wars against terrorism,<\/strong><\/p>\n

wars on poverty,<\/strong><\/p>\n

wars to end all wars<\/strong><\/p>\n

water wars<\/strong><\/p>\n

whale wars<\/strong><\/p>\n

word wars<\/p>\n

world wars<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

And so, <\/em>voil\u00e0<\/em>, a lexicon of wars, and a figure (below) that suggests a socialization process that may keep us joined to a \u201cfutile\u201d process in which competition is not an evolutionary necessity, as promulgated by social Darwinism, but rather an outcome of continued asymmetries in power, wealth, and equality.<\/p>\n

A special thank you to all who contributed additions. They are noted in bold print<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nFrom: Marsella, A.J. (2011). The United States of America: \u201cA Culture of War.\u201d<\/em>
\nInternational Journal of Intercultural Relations<\/em><\/strong>, 35, 714-728<\/p>\n

_____________________<\/p>\n

Anthony Marsella, member of TRANSCEND, is a past president of Psychologists for Social Responsibility, emeritus professor of psychology at the University of Hawaii, and past director of the World Health Organization Psychiatric Research Center in Honolulu. He is known nationally and internationally as a pioneer figure in the study of culture and psychopathology who challenged the ethnocentrism and racial biases of many assumptions, theories, and practices in psychology and psychiatry. In more recent years, he has been writing and lecturing on peace and social justice. He has published 15 edited books, and more than 250 articles, chapters, book reviews, and and popular pieces. He can be reached at marsella@hawaii.edu<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Overwhelmed by the endless violence and wars in our world, I wrote an email to a number of listservs where I listed a number of different adjectives preceding the word \u201cwar.\u201d And I added a request to readers to make any additions they felt were appropriate. The email brought many replies that both suggested additions and that acknowledged the implications of the emerging \u201clexicon of wars.\u201d Thus I share with you an updated and more comprehensive lexicon of wars, with a figure (in the end) that suggests a socialization process for wars.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-transcend-members"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22101"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22101\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":235882,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22101\/revisions\/235882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}